Baby first aid: parents to the rescue

I was driving recently when a strangled gurgle erupted from the rear seat, where my eight-month-old daughter Esme might have been choking to death. This guttural "uurrrgh-blurrgh" continued for a heart-stopping second before she returned to her happy "ah-ba-ba-ba" song but I was shaken up by the incident to the extent that I signed up for a first aid course.

For many of us, first aid knowledge is a bit like our recall of amazing scientific facts down the pub – bewilderingly vague. I never really gave my ignorance a second thought until I realised that as a father of twins it would be horrific if something went wrong and I couldn't do anything about it.

Above the sinks in the Red Cross Norwich centre's toilets is a helpful guide to washing your hands – in 11 steps. Thankfully, the charity's first aid for babies and children is not nearly so complicated. Attending the training day with me are nine others, including four young teachers and a grandmother. Our topics of study are every parent's worst nightmare: bleeding, embedded objects, burns, sprains and strains (phew, a benign one), fractures, raised temperatures, seizures, meningitis, severe allergic reactions, head injuries, swallowing harmful substances, vomiting and diarrhoea.

We begin with the building blocks: checking for breathing, the recovery or "safe position" and, if they are not breathing, baby CPR. Red Cross trainers say that those memorable Vinnie Jones CPR ads for the British Heart Foundation, as well as footballer Fabrice Muamba's cardiac arrest, have raised an awareness of cardiopulmonary resuscitation, but the technique is different for children under a year old.

The eerie training mannequins – dolls and torsos of young children – are officially known as Resusci Annies, but our Red Cross trainer, Diana MacDonald-Steele, refers to them as Tommy. First we have to call Tommy's name, tap his feet and put our cheek to his mouth to see if he is breathing. If so, the "safe position" is to hold him close to you in a cuddle but keeping his head lower than his bottom. If he is not breathing, we must begin CPR by tilting back the head with one finger on his chin as if he is "sniffing the air", as MacDonald-Steele puts it, to ensure his airways are clear, and then begin CPR with five one-second "rescue breaths", putting our mouths over his mouth and nose.

"You've got to think you are huffing on a window," says MacDonald-Steele, as we hunch over our prone babies, which have plastic tubes to send our breath into their chests. After the rescue breaths, we quickly place two fingers on Tommy's chest and give 30 firm compressions at the rate of two a second. Then we give two more rescue breaths, and repeat this cycle three times, continuing until the medics arrive. With older children, the process is the same but we must pinch their nose and huff into their mouth, and the compressions are done with a firm hand rather than two fingers.

First aid classes at school passed me by and, embarrassingly, I can't recall exactly how to put a child or an adult into the recovery position. "Wave-prayer-pockets-knee" is how MacDonald-Steele encourages us to remember. "If you leave them on their back, you leave them to die," she says. It suddenly strikes me how banal the difference between life and death is.

Choking is probably every new parent's most common anxiety, especially when Esme's twin Camilla shoves everything from soil to remote controls into her dainty mouth. I put Tommy over my knees, holding his jaw between thumb and forefinger, and give him five tentative taps on the back. MacDonald-Steele reminds us that this is one of the most resilient parts of the body, and what's a bit of bruising when a life is at stake? Ninety-nine per cent of the time, five back blows will dislodge the choking object, says our trainer. If not, we must turn Tommy on his back with his head lower than his bottom and perform five chest thrusts, a bit like CPR but with the fingers directed up to the throat.

Head injuries must be a close second to choking. "If you took a child to hospital every time they banged their heads, you'd move in there," says MacDonald-Steele. There's no magic rule: we're told to sit the injured person down with a cold compress and monitor them for signs of potential internal damage include drowsiness, dizziness, disorientation, fluid in ears or nose and dilated pupils.

As we are whisked through these demonstrations, it becomes obvious that this stuff is easy to remember and, like the best philosophy, all fits together. Old myths die hard, however. "My mother used to put butter on my burns," says MacDonald-Steele, rolling her eyes. These days, there's one clear rule: put the burnt bit under a cold tap for a full 10 minutes – not 30 seconds. Burns don't need creams but should be gently wrapped in clingfilm.

Other changes to old-fashioned wisdom include never inducing vomiting if a child has swallowed a toxic substance (doing nothing except calling for medical help is the best thing to do), and never tilting the head backwards to stop a nosebleed: instead, tip the head forwards, pinching the soft end of the nose, and releasing to check for bleeding every 10 minutes. After 30 minutes of bleeding, call for help.

"Never be afraid to dial 999," says MacDonald-Steele. "First aiders shouldn't go beyond their limitations – no tracheostomies with Biros, you know what I mean?"

I know what she means. While not exactly brimming with confidence, I am at least now equipped with some basic tools if a child close to me crosses that banal line between life and danger of death.

The Red Cross's six-hour first aid for baby and child course is available at 45 locations in the UK (£60 in London; £45 outside). redcrossfirstaidtraining.co.uk